Cash for contract killing: The economics behind hiring a hitman

Fictional hitmen played by John Cusack and Dan Ackroyd in the movie Grosse Pointe Blank, but the reality is a little less wisecracking and a lot less lucrative (Picture: Sky TV)

In fiction, hitmen wear dark suits, execute targets using guns with silencers and then walk off into the horizon with a briefcase full of cash.

The reality, however, is a little different. There is still cash on offer if you decide to kill someone for money, just not very much. At least that appears to be the situation at the lower end of the scale in the world of contract killing.

Those who aren’t skilled assassins for hire and are tempted to carry out a ‘favour’ for a friend or loved one by killing someone shouldn’t expect to see a contract at all.

Crime doesn’t pay, according to a new study published by Samuel Cameron, an economics professor at the University of Bradford. His study, Killing for Money and the Economic Theory of Crime, published in the Taylor & Francis journal Review of Social Economy, finds that relatively low sums exchange hands when someone hires another to kill, particularly given the risks and implications involved.

The study avoids professional hitmen and examines the costs involved when a wife or husband or business partner seeks to have someone killed and approaches a person they know to carry out the deed.

Prof Cameron collected data on contract killings from media outlets and examined 52 cases in Britain stretching back as far as 1972. The list reveals that there is little financial gain from agreeing to kill someone. Most of the payments are relatively small considering the task demanded of those hired to kill. The lowest payment was for £200, while sums of £700 and £800 were also agreed. Several payments were in the low thousands.

The killings or attempted killings (7 out of 10 of those examined in the study resulted in the death of the victim) were usually sparked by a breakdown in a personal or professional relationship, or by the opportunity to claim an inheritance. They were not drug-related or organised crime ‘hits’. Of the cases examined, 65% resulted in life sentences for those found guilty.

Prof Cameron explained why those hired to kill will do so for what seems like little recompense. ‘They will do it for less money because of their attachment to the person,’ he told Metro. There is, of course, another factor at play to explain why the sums are lower than expected.

‘The obvious reason the sum would be in low in some cases is that the people don’t have very much money to pay the person,’ said Prof Cameron. ‘The money’s a token. It’s like somebody saying they’ll come round and help you plaster your house or renovate your basement. And you say, “Take something”, and they go, “Oh no, I can’t” and you say, “Here’s £500” – it’s that.

‘It’s not primarily a monetary kind of transaction. It’s not like buying a house. It’s not something you do every day and it’s not something that’s normal. People are taking so little for the risk involved. An economist would tend to argue there’s a value of life and, for the person who is getting involved, the risk of going to prison – that would imply that they should ask for a large sum of money.’

These are amateur contract killings, organised by people with a personal stake in the matter and carried out by those with no experience of taking a life, so it is inevitable that the plan is either abandoned or botched. This is far removed from the world of professional hitmen, said Prof Cameron.

‘You’re paying people who don’t normally get paid for that kind of thing. Professional hitmen would be internally employed regularly perhaps by organisations. In large organisations, someone would be specialised in doing that rather than being a person for hire. There’s the conundrum that if they’re really professional, they won’t get caught.

‘If you were a professional, you wouldn’t get involved in these cases. If you were a top guy who worked for gangs or killed politicians in some country, and some person who wants to get rid of their partner to get their inheritance – who’s clearly nervous, amateurish and not ruthless – comes to you, you wouldn’t take the job, would you? They wouldn’t know how to contact you in the first place. This is the homemade amateur end of the spectrum, which is why the prices are low.’

There is very little data on the economics of contract killing – the most comprehensive to date comes from Australia. In 2003, the Australian Institute of Criminology found that there were 162 hits organised between 1989 and 2002, making up two per cent of murders in that period. The average payment was AUS $16,500, ranging from as little as AUS $500 to AUS $100,000.